In the UK can crops for fuels be grown on land that was previously part of ‘set-aside?
Yes. Set-aside was introduced in the early nineties as a way of taking land out of production and to prevent the accumulation of food mountains in the EU. At that time these surpluses were being ‘dumped’ on world markets, thus depressing market prices and contributing to poverty in developing countries. However, these surpluses no longer exist and coupled with increasing demand and rising prices the European Commission has reduced set aside to zero for the current year. This land will be available for any agricultural production including biofuels.
